Approach:
Agricultural production has a great, although poorly understood, impact on the nutritional quality of the food supply. Many agricultural practices (including post-harvest technologies) either intentionally or unintentionally alter the nutritional value of foods. Similarly, animal feeding regimens have been devised to increase the concentration of healthy fats while slaughter/post slaughter practices have been developed to maintain quality and enhance shelf life of animal food products. Few such practices or alterations actually have been demonstrated by well-designed studies to have an impact on human physiology and/or health. Both plant- and animal-based foods provide the broad range of nutrients and health-promoting non-nutritive components that optimize and promote health. Specific chemical constituents of food may affect individual consumers differently (resulting in divergent health outcomes) depending on their specific genetic/metabolic profiles. Clarification is needed regarding the amounts of food components that will impact health-associated risk factors given the genetic diversity among humans.
Understanding and developing solutions to the above issues requires an integrated knowledge of, and close alliance between the disciplines of human nutrition and production agriculture. Appropriately designed human studies of diet and health reinforced by studies in animals and cell systems are needed to identify agricultural production practices that truly alter the nutrient value of foods. This program is designed to foster the cooperation and interdisciplinary approaches needed to address such concerns.
Examples of possible questions to be addressed include (but are not limited to): Do animal selection-induced changes in fat composition of beef affect blood lipids in humans? What is the effect of climate and cultivar-induced changes in anthocyanin profiles of blueberries on measures of cognition in humans? Are there nutrient gene interactions resulting from blackberry consumption? What is the effect of plant selection-induced changes in glucosinolate composition of crucifers on activation of nrf2-regulated antioxidant genes? Do diet-induced changes in omega 3: omega 6 ratios in farmed salmon affect pro- or anti-aggregatory prostaglandin production?